Release Date: 22 June 2011
Song Count: 13
Rating: 9.1/10
Description:
For a personal special anniversary, today's venture was a trip back to the past of what yours truly considers to be the very best band out there - from the other corner of the world over at Perth, Western Australia, is the progressive metal band of many labels, Voyager. They've been in the scene for well over two decades now, but have only recently gained worldwide recognition via participating at a certain famous song competition representing their home country and finishing in a very high position with an incredible song that perfectly balances the heaviness of metal music with synths, electronic sounds and a truly irreplaceable soundscape overall. Of course, the band took years to get to the position it is at now, honing their craft and experimenting with their unmistakeable style, and the album being reviewed today, The Meaning of I, is a prime sign of this evolution they went through.
The Meaning of I is Voyager's fourth album in their discography and is an open display of their talents and genre-defying innovation, as well as showing the first inklings of the band's modern sound of groovy and playful yet simultaneously heavy, introspective and punching songs featuring Danny Estrin's clean, powerful and one-of-a-kind vocals and an absolutely lively energy permeatinig throughout all of the music. Though at this stage of their history it is clear that this recipe for musical mastery is yet in development, requiring more time to define itself fully, the leaps and strides the album takes reach so far to still manage to largely capture that same magic that would then go on to turn their later works into masterpieces.
It is difficult to describe Voyager's music and the feeling invoked by listening to it without urging others to try it out for themselves, partially induced by the lack of a definable category that it fits into - with labels like "progressive pop metal", "synth metal", "space metal" and many more having been tossed around by others to verbally capture its energy, it may even be fair to say that their genre is simply "Voyager", and wherever the band decides to take their songs, that is where this self-pioneered genre goes.
Each and every track brings in a new sort of electricity and power to the grand picture, and while the variance in overall memorability between all of the songs is a bit wider in The Meaning of I compared to what came after it, that is most certainly not to say that there is any song unworthy of wide praise here (except maybe one, but that is due to my own sensitivity to hearing my own native language in songs). Nevertheless, if standouts had to be chosen, my picks for the absolute must-listens of the album would be "Stare in the Night", "Seize the Day", "Broken" and "She Takes Me - Into the Morning Light" - absolutely flawless tracks that easily rival with some of Voyager's future magnum opi in terms of songs.
This was a sonical journey I was glad to have taken, and one that led me to a work that, even in spite of my already extremely high expectations and it supposedly still being the "ugly phase" of the band's overall discography before the absolute immaculacy they were able to reach with future albums like V, Colours in the Sun and (most importantly) Ghost Mile, managed to be impressive nonetheless. Never would I have thought I could experience so much more passion for my all-time favourite band than previously, but alas, here things stand. Absolutely brilliant.